Compensation

To find routes for compensation, click here.

For people whose criminal convictions are overturned where the reliability of Horizon was essential to the prosecution

Interim payments of up to £163,000 have been expedited, ahead of final compensation. These have been made in the vast majority of cases and will continue as further convictions are overturned by the Courts.

You can find more information about progress of appeals and compensation here and information here about help and support if you wish to consider an appeal against conviction.

Group Litigation claimants

The 555 Group Litigation claimants reached a jointly agreed settlement with Post Office in December 2019.  This included a £57.75 million global payment as full and final redress.

There were 62 claimants with criminal convictions. The terms of the settlement allow those claimants to pursue further certain specified claims arising out of their prosecutions if and when their individual convictions are overturned. 

Whilst the settlement was jointly agreed in good faith as fair and appropriate in all the circumstances, subsequent media reports revealed that around £46 million of the £57.75 global payment was directed to the claimants’ funders and legal advisors. We continually urged the Government to address this unfairness.

On 30 June 2022, Government announced a planned compensation package for GLO claimants and we welcome this action on final, equitable compensation. Further information, announced on 7 December 2022 by the Government, can be found here.

On 22 March 2022, the Government announced the ex-gratia Group Litigation Order (GLO) Compensation Scheme with the objective of ensuring postmasters who were part of the GLO and not eligible to seek compensation from the Post Office have access to fair compensation for their Horizon-related losses. The scheme will be delivered by the Department of Business and Trade (DBT, formerly BEIS) and further information can be found here.

For other former and current Postmasters

In 2020 we established two schemes that were both open to current and former Postmasters.

The Horizon Shortfall Scheme was launched to independently assess applications from current and former Postmasters who believed they may have experienced shortfalls related to previous versions of the Horizon system.

The founding principles of the Scheme were endorsed by the legal representatives for the Group Litigation claimants’ steering group.

Following Government funding support in 2021, offers and payments are being made each week after the assessment of cases by the Scheme’s independent advisory panel of experts. You can find information on the progress of the Scheme here.

In addition to applicants who are currently part of the Horizon Shortfall Scheme, or who have already accepted offers, we are aware there are people who, for a variety of reasons and circumstances, were unable to apply to the Scheme while it was open in 2020. To recognise this, we will now accept eligible late applications into the Horizon Shortfall Scheme and more information about this is available here.

We also ran the Stamp Scheme for Postmasters who felt they were affected by the way certain discrepancies in stamp stock had previously been resolved. Applications to this are now closed.